Wednesday, January 14, 2015

Sister Souljah, for you...

...became
infamous for her statements about the 1992 Los Angeles riots. In an
interview conducted May 13, 1992, she was quoted in the Washington Post
as saying, "If black people kill black people every day, why not have a
week and kill white people?"

The quotation
was later reproduced in the media, and she was widely criticized.
Presidential candidate Bill Clinton publicly criticized that
statement—and Jesse Jackson for allowing her to be on his Rainbow
Coalition—thus the Sister Souljah moment was created.

Thomas Edsall asks in his column this morning, "Can Jeb Bush Defy the Tea Party and Win?"

(If you're in a hurry I'll save you some time: the answer is "no.")Edsall writes (all emphasis mine):

Can Jeb Bush win the Republican presidential nomination while defying the most ideologically committed wing of his party?

Bill
Clinton did this successfully in 1992, when he staked out conservative
stands opposed by the liberal wing of his party — the so-called Sister
Souljah strategy, designed to distance himself from the dogma of the
left generally and from Jesse Jackson specifically.

___

Clinton
defied liberals when he backed the death penalty and called for an end
to long-term welfare. Most famously, in June 1992 Clinton attacked Jesse
Jackson at a Rainbow Coalition event for giving the podium to the rap
singer Sister Souljah, whom Clinton compared to the white supremacist
David Duke.

Clinton
issued his public rebuke to Souljah and Jackson in part as a signal
that he would focus on stemming the outflow of whites from the
Democratic Party.

In
a roughly similar way, Bush has decided to confront his party’s right
wing on issues of immigration, the Common Core and same-sex marriage.

___

David
Karol, a political scientist at the University of Maryland and the
author of “Party Position Change in American Politics: Coalition
Management,” suggested in an email that Republicans might not be ready
for a challenge to party ideology.

Karol
notes that Clinton’s situation in 1992 was different. Democrats “had
been crushed in three successive presidential elections.A large segment
of the party elite accepted that real change was necessary.” As a
result, “a lot of the groundwork had been laid by the time Clinton ran
as a ‘New Democrat.’ ”

Despite President Obama’s 2008 and 2012 victories, Republican fear of defeat is not at the same level. “The G.O.P.’s
success in Congressional elections tends to reinforce the view of many
that they can win in 2016 without making major changes,” Karol wrote.

And
he's right. Think about Mitt Romney's campaign in 2012. Can you cite
one example of the GOP nominee telling a Republican audience something
they didn't want to hear? Me, neither.

As
for Mr. Edsall's examples of immigration, education and marriage
equality, I'm not overly impressed. When I see a serious Republican
candidate have a "Sister Souljah moment" in front of the NRA or a
pro-life group, then I'll sit up and take notice. (Or how about just telling some
crowd of older white people that, while you may disagree with President
Obama on this or that issue, he's really a well-meaning, patriotic
American. Ha!)

Until then, I'm with Mr. Karol: Republicans just aren't ready to adapt. Or win at the national level.